"Day in the life of an emu rescuer" wins award

Kaitlyn never wanted to be a filmmaker but her passion to explain what was happening with a threatened species has resulted in her taking out a young filmmakers award for this video.

Kaitlyn McMurtry was requested to come up with a major project for school. It had to be a big idea that would take the bulk of a year to research, then plan and execute an outcome. It also had to to be something she was passionate about.

Living on the North Coast of NSW, Kaitlyn is acutely aware of the threats faced by our native wildlife. We all see road kill daily as we commute to town, work and school. She started doing some research about how many of these animals are threatened or endangered species and realised not only do we have many species in this region that are at risk, but that also worldwide species are disappearing at a frightening rate.

Kaitlyn is concerned that many more species will disappear during her lifetime. She decided that her project would be to background, then design a public campaign to raise awareness about this issue.

This is when Kaitlyn approached me about being her mentor for the video section of her project.

I advised Kaitlyn advocacy videos usually only get an audience of the already converted and if she wanted the message to get out to a bigger audience then the best way is to tell people a story. One person's or one animal's journey could provide the structure on which to weave her bigger global story.

I recommended using the vehicle of our "Day in the life" project. Following someone for a day provides an elegant and simple structure with a beginning, middle and end.

Kaitlyn had a few false starts about whose "Day in the life" would provide the structure for her video but I will leave that for her to tell you about in a guest blog.

In the end, her concept for the structure went back to how the story originated: with her own journey.

All these decisions seem to have paid off.

Kaitlyn took out first prize in the 12-14 year old division, for her project "Day in the life of an emu rescuer" at the inaugural Byron Shire Youth Film Competition and was screened to a packed house as part of Youth Week celebrations this week.

Kaitlyn's project was one of twenty three films screened. They were made by young people aged between 12 and 25 and ranged from documentaries about emus and sharks, to comedies and music clips.

The judging panel included Byron's mayor, Simon Richardson, Shane Rennie a co-director of the Flickerfest Film Festival, local documentary filmmaker Pele Safra, Tegan Rowles from Byron Youth Service and Ngurung Brown from Youth Council.

Shane Rennie from Flickerfest said he was impressed with the quality of the projects selected.

"It is always refreshing and rewarding to see and encourage passionate stories and ideas put to film; especially from our local young adults,” he said.

Stay tuned for Kaitlyn's "making of" guest blog. She will take you behind the scenes of how this video was created, share a few of her ups and downs, and explain how it became a bonding experience for her and her dad.